Milpitas progresses smart city infrastructure projects
The San Francisco Bay Area city’s programme is expected to drive transformational energy efficiencies for the municipality by reducing utility consumption by more than 4.2 million kWh of electricity per year.
The City of Milpitas is progressing its smart city infrastructure programme with the completion and near-completion of 10 water and energy projects.
Delivered in collaboration with low carbon energy and services specialist Engie North America, the measures will enhance community services and contribute to the city’s climate action plan and resiliency goals, and reduce operations, maintenance, and utility costs.
Landmark projects
Located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay, Milpitas is an integral part of Silicon Valley with a population of 80,273. So far, the City and Engie have completed work on water upgrades to 25 public buildings and parks, 2,185 LED streetlight retrofits, 4,453 streetlight controls upgrades with outage detection and city-wide LED lighting upgrades in parks, sports fields, city buildings, and community facilities.
Projects nearing completion include two landmark microgrid projects at the Milpitas Senior Centre and Milpitas Community Centre. The microgrids incorporate a 200kW solar photovoltaic system and energy storage capabilities, enabling the city to reduce its reliance on energy from the utility at these locations and providing a source of clean back-up power.
“The City of Milpitas is a best-practice example of what can be achieved at the nexus of smart city solutions and energy”
In addition, Milpitas and Engie are close to completing the roll-out of 15,600 advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) water meters with leak detection, supervisory control and data acquisition (Scada) and remote communication systems, pumping and automated water treatment and electric vehicle charging stations.
Milpitas’ infrastructure programme is expected to drive transformational energy efficiencies for the municipality by reducing utility consumption by more than 4.2 million kWh of electricity per year. This is equivalent to the average consumption from 388 households or 335,000 gallons of gas consumed. This reduction is anticipated to save more than $1.5m in energy and water costs per year, for a net lifetime savings from the project of more than $30m.
In recognition of the innovative approach taken by Milpitas and Engie, the city has won a Smart 50 award from Smart Cities Connect and the Smart Cities Connect Foundation.
“The City of Milpitas is a best-practice example of what can be achieved at the nexus of smart city solutions and energy,” said Courtney Jenkins, vice president and head of distributed energy solutions at Engie North America. “As recognised by the Smart 50 Awards, Milpitas is among the few global leaders in this field and should be seen as a template for other US cities as we all look to a more sustainable and fiscally responsible energy future.”
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